A failed car bomb plot in the heart of Paris was hatched by a group of French women, including one who had been engaged to men who had already killed in the name of the Islamic State group, France's top anti-terrorism prosecutor says.
The hunt for the women, who authorities said were guided from Syria, had been ``a race against time'' before they could strike again, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who is overseeing the fight against militant extremists who have killed more than 200 people in France in the past 10 months.
Arrests on Thursday night had linked three attacks - the failed car bomb near Notre Dame Cathedral, the killing of two police near Paris in June, and the stabbing death of a French priest during Mass in July - and marked a new phase in the Islamic State group's efforts to sow fear in Europe.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group, said, ``In the last few days and hours, a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly Daesh ideology.''
The group was ``guided by individuals in Syria,'' showing that IS ``means to turn women into fighters'', Molins said.
Police raced to find the suspects after the abandoned car was discovered before dawn on Sunday. The Peugeot 607 _ its hazard lights flashing _ contained gas canisters, a blanket with traces of fuel, and a burned-out cigarette. No detonators were found.
Among three women arrested together on Thursday was Ines Madani, a 19-year-old whose father owned the Peugeot, Molina said. Her written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State was found by police, he added.
Also arrested in the raid was a 39-year-old woman, identified as Amel S., and her oldest daughter was detained in the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois, authorities said. Another woman, arrested earlier in the week, was also in custody.
One fiance, Larossi Abballa, killed two police officials in Magnanville in June and filmed the aftermath on Facebook Live before dying in a police raid, he said.
The other was Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of the Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, during morning Mass in July in the northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, he added. Kermiche and another attacker were shot dead by police.
Molins said Sarah H., who was shot in the leg during the raid, had stabbed a police officer through the open window of a car, while Ines had stabbed another officer as she tried to escape.
Security around Paris was visibly higher on Friday amid the investigation.
A bomb squad with dogs and a scanner was deployed when a gas canister with a timer but no detonator was found outside a police station on Friday morning in La Plaine Saint Denis, just north of Paris, and one kilometre from the Stade de France in Saint Denis, police said.
As well, the son of a gas delivery driver was detained briefly because he had canisters in his car. Elsewhere in Paris, police used explosives to disable an illegally parked motorcycle.
